Pupils Brush Up

On Irish Studies

In True Fashion

WINTER PARK — What better place to soak up Irish studies than in an Irish pub?

That's the concept adopted by Rollins College professor Maurice "Socky" O'Sullivan, who teaches his class every Wednesday afternoon in a different Irish pub.

The 15 seniors taking the Irish Studies seminar drink black beer, eat shepherd's pie and listen to Irish composers for 21/2 hours as they read and discuss the works of Irish authors such as James Joyce, Samuel Beckett and Seamus Heaney.

"It's better than the traditional setting, where you're apt to get bored," said Melissa Mulligan, 22, an English major from West Palm Beach. "And the beverages help enhance your knowledge."

The class is not all fun and games. Students concentrate in silence as classmates read from plays delving into the deep, dark sides of the characters in Irish literature.

Wednesday's class at Kate O'Brien's ended with students discussing how the life of the lead character in Beckett's 1958 play, Krapp's Last Tape, mirrored that of Gainesville mass murderer Danny Rolling.

"The whole way through [the character's) life it was `damn this' and `damn that,'" said Ruthie Thompson, 22, an English major from Houston. "Deep down, it bothered him emotionally."

Rollins, a private liberal arts school, boasts that its Irish Studies program is the longest-running American college course taught in Ireland. Foreign language professor Frank Sedgwick started teaching it in Dublin in 1972 after linking with a Dublin professor who liked the idea.

Rollins professors have held the course in Dublin schools, most recently Dublin City University.

Rollins seniors must choose at least one seminar in their final year. Students in the Irish Studies course praise O'Sullivan, a New Jersey native who became fascinated with the Emerald Isle as a teen-ager.

"With his being Irish, he has more of zeal," said Becky Wilson, 21, an English major who grew up in Leeds, England. "He's not just teaching it or preaching it. He knows it, he lives it."

Not all of the students are Irish-American. The class includes students with Vietnamese, Jewish, Indian and French heritage.

"I wanted to be more exposed to world literature," said Thuy-Tran Nguyen, 21, who came to the United States from Vietnam in 1980. "I had no idea who Joyce, Beckett and Heaney were."

The class is not just about literature, O'Sullivan said. It's also about history. Students talk about the paradox of a country whose people have a reputation for both hospitality and violence.

"You can't really talk about Joyce without talking about Ireland at the turn of the 20th century," said O'Sullivan, 49, chairman of the school's English Department. "And students being students, they're very curious."

Last week, students acted out a play in the Prince of Wales bar in Winter Park, coaxing patrons to play roles. The long table of books and beers stand out in the pubs.